Manga Review: One Piece Volume Nine by Eiichiro Oda

One Piece Volume Nine is a manga by Eiichiro Oda, and it was published by Viz Media’s Shonen Jump imprint in 2005. The series is rated “T” for teens; from the nine volumes that I’ve read of the One Piece manga series, I would have to agree with this rating.

One Piece follows a young man named Monkey D. Luffy, who has a dream of finding the fabled One Piece treasure on the Grand Line and becoming the king of the pirates. However, when he was a boy, he ate some of the devil fruit, which turned his body into rubber.

At this point in the series, Luffy has acquired several members for his crew, as well as a ship to travel in. As the book opens, Nami the navigator has taken the ship and returned to her home on Fish-Man Island. Luffy and the others have come to Fish-Man Island in order to get Nami and the ship back.

Near the end of Volume Nine, there’s a flashback sequence that shows Nami’s life as a child on Fish-Man Island and why she ended up joining “Saw-Tooth” Arlong and Arlong’s Pirates. Not only did this flashback provide character development for Nami, it was also a rather touching story. This portion of the Fish-Man Island arc has really helped to make Nami a very sympathetic character. I’m glad to see I was right that there was more to Nami’s story than there appeared on the surface back in Volume Eight.

Of the One Piece volumes that I’ve read so far, I would have to say that Volume Nine is the most serious volume. Sure, there’s some of the humor readers have come to expect in this volume, but overall, the tone of this volume is rather serious. I think this is due in large part to the events that take place in the flashback for Nami’s backstory. With the volume having such a strong focus on Nami’s backstory, it really is no wonder why the overall mood of the volume is more serious than normal. I have to admit that I almost cried when I saw what happened to Nami in her childhood.

I have to say that One Piece keeps getting better and better the further that I get into the series. I hope that One Piece continues to get better as I read future volumes of the series. As of this writing, One Piece has already broken 60 volumes, so it may take me quite a while to find out the answer to this pondering.

About Lesley Aeschliman

Lesley Aeschliman is a freelance writer who began writing on a full-time basis in 2007. She has served as the Anime editor at BellaOnline.com, and she also writes and maintains two blogs: Lesley's Musings... on Anime and Manga and AeschTunes.